Ten years after Nikki Cominskey had the world’s most awkward dinner date with Jesus (played by Jefferson Moore), Nikki’s daughter is flying to Portland.
Having just graduated from high school, Sarah (Ruby Lewis) wants to attend an exclusive art school but she fears that she may not get the scholarship that she would need. If that wasn’t stressful enough, she’s also not getting along with her parents. She never thought that her mom and dad were actually seriously about all that church stuff but it turns out that they were and now they are scandalized to discover that Sarah doesn’t even consider herself to be a believer! The night before Sarah’s trip, Nikki sat her daughter down and told her about the night that she had dinner with Jesus. Now, Sarah is worried that her mother has lost her mind.
Because Sarah is flying the least efficient airline in existence, there’s a layover in Dallas on the way to Portland. That leaves Sarah a lot of time to get to know the man who is sitting next to her on the airplane. His name is Yesh and he says that he comes from a small town in the east. He also says that he’s a counselor and that he works with his father. When Sarah asks what Yesh’s father does, Yesh says that it’s not easy to explain but that his father has a lot of responsibility. He’s in charge of many things. Sarah thinks that Yesh is a friendly stranger but, since he’s played by Jefferson Moore, the audience knows who he actually is.
Yesh and Sarah discuss religion. Sarah says she hates religion. Yesh says that he agrees, because people have twisted religion to satisfy their own base desires. Sarah says that she can’t understand her parents. Yesh says that her parents love her just as his father loves everyone. Sarah says that she wants to be an artist. Yesh tells her to be sure not to fall asleep during art history class. (Hold on, Yesh! I majored in art history! Art history rocks!) Sarah assumes that Yesh is an atheist and gets a little annoyed when Yesh reveals that he’s actually not. Yesh reads her a poem and explains that it was written by his father and that it’s in the Bible. Sarah is amazed because she thought the Bible was just full of rules. She doesn’t seem to notice that Yesh said that his father wrote the Bible but that’s because Sarah doesn’t really come across as being that smart.
You can pretty much guess where all of this leading. With the exception of one surprisingly well-handled scene in which Sarah discusses the trauma that turned her away from religion, Another Perfect Stranger follows the same storyline as The Perfect Stranger. The main difference is that Sarah is a teenager and the conversation takes place on a plane instead of at a restaurant. Once again, Yesh wins every argument because the screenwriter is on his side and Sarah is incapable of coming up with any counterpoints that aren’t easily dismissed. Unfortunately, this film is also 20 minutes longer than The Perfect Stranger and pace is much slower. The majority of Sarah’s dialogue sounds like it was written by a computer program designed to basically approximate the speaking habits of someone under the age of 30. On the plus side, Sarah is not quite as humiliated by Jesus as her mother was.
This was followed by one more Perfect Stranger film, which was only 61 minutes long and which I’ll take a look at tomorrow.
Through the Shattered Lens 